


Burning Suns

by Nyaow



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Eleventh Doctor Era, Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyaow/pseuds/Nyaow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No duplicate is made and the Doctor holds off his eleventh regeneration for a different day. He did promise Rose Tyler forever, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Suns

**Author's Note:**

> Basically Eleventh's era as if the Doctor never regenerated and Rose comes with him instead of returning to Pete's World. I actually really love Matt Smith's Doctor, but the fact that Rose didn't interact with either of them in the 50th seriously irked me so I guess this is wish fulfillment. 
> 
> Also, River might be a little awkward because she has to be turned into the best friend, basically, but she's one of my favorites so I refuse to butcher her character anymore than necessary. So, yeah, "hello, sweetie" is going nowhere.
> 
> No Clara because half the links with her in it didn't work and what I did see I didn't like enough to try and mesh with this plot. A few other links didn't work too, so random episodes will be missing.

It goes like this: Rose Tyler is inside the TARDIS, both about to die, when the voice comes to her and says, I am Bad Wolf and I create myself. 

 

 

When she wakes up, it's not quite the same but similar because it will always be Daleks with the two of them. The Doctor didn't remove Bad Wolf this time - not fully - because Bad Wolf creates herself and left peacefully and there's still a part left inside Rose and once upon a time she promised him forever. He promised her as close to forever as they could get. Here's his forever, if she wants it. S'not like she has any intention of turning it down if she can help it. 

His face splits into a smile at the sight of her, eyes creasing at the edges. Her Doctor, her daft alien. "There's my Rose!" he says a little too loud and perfectly enthusiastic and Donna Noble and Jack both peer over his shoulders with Mickey and Mum bending in from the sides. "Told you she'd wake up. Stuff of Legends, this one."

"So I'm still fantastic, then?" she asks with a grin and before she can ask to be helped up, Mum's thrown herself over her in some sort of hug. "Mum, let me up!"

"You looked pretty dead there for a moment, Rose," Mickey tells her and he's the only one whose smile seems strained. "You know, once you stopped being all gold and glowy."

Mum half-sobs, "I thought I lost you. Again!" and Rose reaches up at an uncomfortable angle to pat her back. 

Her eyes, though, are focused solely on the Doctor and he looks nowhere but her. "Rose Tyler," he answers, "fantastic isn't strong enough to start."

Forever is a very long time, but she thinks she can do it. If she can do it by his side, she can do anything. 

 

 

Then they're back on Bad Wolf Bay in Pete's World dropping off Mum and Mickey who know enough not to ask her to stay. "Say it," she demands.

"Does it need saying?"

Yes, yes, she's still human and - "Of course it needs saying."

He bends down close to her ear and whispers five little words: "Rose Tyler, I love you."

So she kisses him like they're burning up a sun just to be together. 

 

 

The Daleks did something to Donna's brain and the only way to save her was for the Doctor to wipe all memory of their time together. Rose waits alone in the TARDIS, allowing them privacy, and walks around the control panel, realizing her absorption means she can fly it now. She's got a manual built into her tiny, human, immortal brain. 

The Doctor comes back, wet from rain, and she holds him when he cries. 

 

 

There comes a sudden lurch. "Something's wrong with the TARDIS!"

"Thank you, Rose, that slipped my attention!"

They run around the controls, work together as they go, and he's got this wonderfully silly smile on his face despite everything. He hasn't had anyone help him pilot this thing in hundreds of years, of course, and she thinks the team effort is the only thing that keeps them from slamming straight into a building as they go hurdling towards England. The TARDIS lands on its back and the Doctor just barely grabs her fingers before they start falling backwards. 

The pool hits her as a surprise. They kiss, chasing each other's laughter. 

 

 

Amelia Pond, young ginger with a name like a fairy tale, goes from a little girl to an adult in fourteen years for her and a little under a day for them. Prisoner Zero is vanquished, his jailors scared off by the very frightening, spiky haired Doctor and Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf and destroyer of the Daleks, and she's having trouble believing she's really back. They invite Amy along because forever is the two of them but others are always welcome, and she accepts without changing her nightie. Rose Tyler ran off with Mickey still kneeling on the ground. Indecent nightwear isn't much of a crime, despite what Amy thinks when they arrive in future Britain sans Scotland. It's bigger on the inside. 

"So why did the TARDIS update itself?" Rose asks as she and the Doctor head off to find the engine that causes no vibration (she travelled with him for a very long time and then worked for Torchwood; she knows how to use her eyes). "You said that only happens when you regenerate, but here you are, still you and everything. Even got the coat, you do."

"Well," he answers, dragging out the word and oh, she missed this voice, "I think it must have happened when it took itself out of you. Now, Rose Tyler, do you like it? Because I don't like it. The round things are gone. I like the round things."

She plays at mock offended, but doesn't release his hand. "Like I would redecorate without consulting you first. Don't go pointing fingers, Mister."

"Are you accusing me of finger pointing?"

"Oi, don't make this about me. We've got a defective engine to find."

He smiles again - has been doing that a lot, this Doctor of hers - and hurries his pace with a cute sort of skip to his step she'd had to struggle not to forget as he says, "Allons-y!" and drags her away.

 

 

In Pete's World, she, Mum, and Mickey all shared this problem where they were aging at their original universe pace while time around them was accelerated. Mum's pregnancy doubled from nine months to eighteen, though now that Tony is born he's moving along fine, and Mickey's girlfriend jumped from a year younger than him to two years older. 

Rose was twenty when she got stuck in Pete's World. Now it's four years later to her and she's twenty-two. With Bad Wolf caught inside her, she's frozen here. The Doctor is a Time Lord and she wonders if this counts as breaking time to be with him. 

Then again, she's already absorbed the universe at nineteen and two years later ripped it apart to save him, so she doubts he's surprised. 

 

 

There are Churchill and Daleks and the London Blitz  _again_  and the Doctor's gripping her upper arms when she says she's not leaving him alone. "If you go up there, they'll hit that inevitable destroy the world button they have instantly," he tells her. "You're Rose Tyler, you've destroyed them down to a number of single digit stranglers twice - three times, if you count an immense amount of help."

"And you're any different?" she answers, twisting away from him. "If mine is three, how many is it for you?"

"They'll read you as a plain old human. You're easy to kill, I'm not," he says. "I've already had you lost in an alternate universe because of them; I'm not letting them succeed in killing you, too. So you're going to stay right here and watch out for Amy and Churchill and all these other silly little humans."

He's infuriating, he is, and normally she'd argue but they're running on preciously short time. Instead she grabs him by the collar and pulls him down and says, "I expect you back by midnight" - a joke from a time far, far away when he had funny ears and a Northern accent. Back when everything was simple and all they had to worry about were Mum's slaps. 

 

 

The Doctor ignores the rules and tells her what River Song told him before she died, that they're best mates that grow their friendship in the wrong order and the same day they met she took his place when he meant to die. She told him Rose wasn't gone forever and then she was gone herself. 

She squeezes Rose so tightly when they see each other it hurts. 

The three of them are together trying to figure out how to solve this Weeping Angel disaster when the crack reappears and Amy is all alone because soldiers are usually idiots. Time is running out, Rose keeps thinking, because she has remnants of Bad Wolf tucked inside her and time is a mystery but reading it isn't. Time is running out and if it touches you, you're gone. Erased. Chloe Webber's animated scribble on the TARDIS that met its end with the back side of the Doctor's pencil.

He takes hold of her hand and lets gravity go.

 

 

Somehow, the Doctor gets the idea to bring Rory along as a wedding present and Rose sits with Amy on her bed. The room reminds her of her old one in London, looking like it still belongs to a little girl. To little fairy tale Amelia Pond.

"Why aren't you married?" Amy asks, staring at her wedding dress. "You two act like you're married."

 _Married._ Nineteen when he found her, didn't even kiss him as her until after the incident with Reinette because she can be a very jealous person. But they had something long before that. "Not sure if he's like that much," she answers, and the first time they'd ever kissed in front of anyone else was Bad Wolf Bay. Since then, they've stopped caring. "Besides, I was gone...a long time. I lost him and he lost me, but then I found him. Fourteen years for you, a couple weeks for us."

She doesn't tell her about Mickey and how she left him out in the cold when the Doctor appeared all Northern with big ears and said the TARDIS can time travel, too. "Rory won't be angry," the other woman says. "Not Rory. He's not like that."

Rose would be angry and Mickey had been angry and she really wants to meet this Rory for more than twenty minutes because he sounds like a good person. "We'll take you somewhere fun. Romantic, yeah?" she says. "Double date with no running for your life."

Amy's smile is half-fake and she swear she hears the woman's heart break. Rose is no stranger to fear. 

 

 

Others have told her the Doctor is frightening when she's taken, but she's never actually seen what that's meant before. Now she wishes she hadn't.

"I kicked her before any of 'em could do anything," she tells him, grabbing his arm because sometimes he needs someone to just stop him before he does something stupid - like kill an entire room filled with alien bug vampires from space that strapped her to a chair because they tried to bite her. "You really think I haven't been in this long enough to know how to get away from a couple of blood sucking centipedes by now?"

"If they hurt you -"

Rolling her eyes, Rose says, "Well, they didn't, and I'd feel a lot better if we started a vigorous jog for Queen Victoria right about now."

Amy and Rory exchange confused looks, still holding UV lights like weapons and the Doctor's face splits into a grin, eyes crinkling and in a better mood now, before he stretches out his hand for her to take. 

" _Run._ "

 

 

Rose wakes up same time as the Doctor, who instantly grabs on to her and clings, gathering her up in his arms like she'd up and disappeared to Pete's World all over again. "It's nothing," he says when she asks what's wrong, but the words come out rattling. "Everything is perfect, Rose."

This doesn't seem perfect at all, she thinks, but saves mentioning it for later. 

 

 

"Original Earth inhabitants living underground?" Rose says, glancing down at the unconscious one on the church floor. "That just happen to be reptiles? Doctor, this might be better than the royal family as werewolves!"

Laughing, the Doctor sweeps her up into an equally excited hug and says, "I know!"

Ambrose, wife of the man and boy taken (and really, she feels quite terrible about that, but  _reptiles living underground_ ), stares at the two of them incredulously. "Three people kidnapped and you're happy about finding these - these  _things?_ Who are you?"

"They always get like that," answers Rory from behind her, seeming a little numb himself for good reason, fiancée eaten by the Earth and all, poor bloke. "After a while you just sort of get used to it."

With the werewolf, they became excited like this and the end result was eternal exile from Britain that partially resulted in her getting stuck in a parallel universe.  _Sir_ Doctor and she,  _Dame_ Rose, went dancing in TARDIS afterwards, but she's twenty-two now, been alive for twenty-six years, and understands that this behavior can be considered indecent. "We'll get your husband and son back, Ambrose," the Doctor tells the woman, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Amy, too. I swear. Once she wakes up, I'll question her and then I'll go down there myself."

"I'm coming too," Rose says, grabbing onto his hand. "Someone needs to get you out of trouble when they spot you, Doctor."

"I'm going to need someone to look after -"

"Rory can do it."

The Doctor sighs, knows enough now not to argue because she's been here a long while yet. "No wandering off, Rose," he says and she smiles. She has no intention of letting him out of her sight ever again. 

 

 

Though it takes a while to sink it, eventually it clicks: Rory Williams is gone. Erased. The Doctor's a Time Lord and she's got all of time and space inside of her, technically, so they remember, but Amy doesn't have that luxury. His own fiancée. Now, hours later, Rose lies with the Doctor in bed, limbs tangled as she tries not to think about cracked walls and closed doors that leave them stranded on two opposing sides. 

They're a mess, they are, but there isn't much they can do about that now. She said they should say something, but he had a dozen counterarguments already prepared. 

With a feather-light touch, he reaches up and moves her hair away from her temple. "I don't care what we're doing or who we're saving, Rose," he says quietly. "If you see that white light coming towards you, I want you to run. No more getting ripped away through cracks in the universe, all right?"

This isn't the first time he's essentially said  _damn the consequences_ for her, and she doubts it will be the last, and for some reason that always hurts. It always hurts so damn bad. "Same goes for you, then, yeah, Doctor?" she tells him. "No light for you. Neither of us are going down if I can help it."

He just nods and curls up tighter around her, planting a kiss on the top of her head. When he promises her he won't leave, Rose believes him because she has to. 

 

 

Rose convinces Vincent Van Gogh to give Amy a goodbye present and she watches her friend now, standing in front of the painting of the sunflowers dedicated to her while holding a sunflower from the '20s as tears spill down her face. "If there's one thing I've learned," Rose says, coming up next to her, "it's that life's a mess of good things and bad things. And his life might've ended on a bad note, it did, but you must've been one hell of a highlight for him to write your name on one of his pictures like that."

As she wipes away her tears, Amy gives her a very forced smile and answers, "I suppose you're right." Then, after a pause, she adds, "Our children would have had very orange hair."

"The ultimate ginger," the Doctor says from her other side. "I always wanted to be ginger. First thing I asked Rose, actually - 'Be honest, am I ginger?' But 'course I'm not and now you're my second friend in a row to have red hair."

If Rory was still here, their kid could've ended up with very red hair, too. It's a thought that hits Rose right in the chest, in the heart, in that sentimental part of her that maybe, just maybe, wants  _that_ \- because Jimmy Stone might've shucked it out of her long before she fell in love with this daft alien and his two hearts beating, but it was one of the last things Mum said to her. And she's twenty-two, been alive for four extra years on top of that, and has time and space burning inside of her; she can afford to be a little sentimental. Even when it hurts. 

Even when it hurts a lot.

Amy's smile melts into something genuine as she takes their hands in hers. 

 

 

Some of the time Amy's yelling at the Doctor for the instructions and Rose is trying to pull off a mix between following them and calming down a panicking TARDIS, which is not an easy task. Mostly, though, after the ship calms down some, the two women are stuck sitting around waiting. And oh how Rose  _hates_ waiting. Living in a time machine will do that to a person, it seems. 

No wonder the Doctor can't sit still. Like this, she understands just about everything - except his hatred of pares, of course, because who in their right mind hates a fruit that much?

Her friend leans back against her chair, crosses her arms, and sighs. "I love how he hates 'domestics' and we're still the ones stuck here instead," she says, eyes on the monitor as Rose brings in tea. Answer to everything, tea is. 

"He doesn't hate it half as much as he pretends to," she tells her, handing over the mug. "We used to have Christmas with my family - and birthdays, and New Years and whenever else Mum could get me home. Terrible cook, my mum was. Managed to make even him sick, believe it or not, or maybe that was the drink we brought in from New Earth. Never could tell, but she made sure to deny it and Mickey wouldn't stop laughing."

Amy gives her an odd look as she sips her tea and Rose realizes she's never really talked about life before that day fourteen years ago. Or six months ago, by her linear calendar, because for some reason everyone seems to have just forgotten the stars going out and the Daleks and the Cybermen and, well, everything. "Who's Mickey?" the other woman asks, blowing away the hot steam. Tea fumes cured the Doctor once, years and years ago. 

Suddenly horrified by the realization that she's becoming as secretive as he is, she lowers her eyes. "My old boyfriend," she answers, staring instead at the settled liquid in her mug. "Mickey Smith was his name. I'm an Estates girl from London, if you couldn't guess from my accent, and everyone in Powell knew each other by first name. He loved me, honest to god love, but I think I was only with him because everyone  _expected_ me to be with him. Together for a year and a half about before the Doctor showed up and I ran off. Mickey traveled with us for a while, but we ended up in a parallel world where his gran was still alive and he stayed. Mum is there now, too."

Though she tries to stop it, her voice catches because all the sudden she's thinking about Mickey and Mum and Tony and Pete and without meaning to, the whole story comes tumbling through. It's not in order, not even particularly coherent, and she skips the parts that just won't make sense without some form of context. By the end of it, Amy's got her wrapped up into the hug and Rose is crying into her shoulder. Everything she's been trying to ignore is pouring out and all she can think is that thank god the Doctor isn't here to see it. 

 

 

"So the TARDIS exploding has the power to tear apart the universe, yeah?"

Amy looks confused and River's making a point to settle her eyes anywhere but Rose. "Well, yes, potentially, strictly speaking," the Doctor says, running his fingers through his already messy hair. "One big boom at the center and the world as we know it would end. That's what the cracks are."

Those cracks, those cracks in the universe so strong they made Amy Pond forget about her fiancé. "So the heart of the TARDIS can tear apart the universe," she repeats, "and I have that  _inside me?_ "

Both the Doctor and River flinch and she wonders how the older woman knows about this at all. Mucked up timelines and whatnot. "Rose," River says, taking her gently by the upper arms and turning her so she faces her, "if the TARDIS explodes likes this predicts, you'll die."

"But that won't happen," says Amy from behind her. "Right, Doctor? We can fix this. Universe will be safe, you and Rose will be fine. Just like always."

"Yeah, of course," the Doctor answers, but he's lying because that's rule number one but Amelia Pond has a name like a fairy tale which means endless  _happily ever after_ s. Suppose this means the death of Disney storytelling, Rose thinks, if they're both about to die like this. "The universe keeps trying to separate us, Rose and me, and you know what? Hasn't worked so far."

She pulls away from River and wraps her arms around him. She can feel his two hearts beating and between them sits a lie. 

 

 

The TARDIS explodes and Rose Tyler dies slowly, screaming and alone.

 

 

When she wakes up, she's in a party dress and the Doctor's in a fancy suit. They blink sleepily at each other for a moment before the memories come flooding back and he sweeps her up, pressing his mouth hard against hers, and the kiss tastes like tears and hope. "Amy has one powerful imagination, doesn't she?" he says, pressing his face into his hair. "Oh, Rose Tyler. I thought we agreed it wasn't going to happen anymore."

Yeah, yeah they had, but neither of them took into account the possibility of the TARDIS exploding and her life being attached directly to it. She still feels phantom pain curling through her body. "Must be their wedding, judging by our clothes," she says, fingers bunching up the fabric of his suit jacket. "Amy and Rory Williams."

"Let’s be honest, Rose. Amy and Rory Pond."

She giggles and it turns into a laugh streaked through with crying before he finally puts her down. "Come along then, my Doctor," she tells him, wiping away her tears with the sides of her hands. "Me and you've got a party to crash."

They open the TARDIS doors and nearly topple to the ground with the force of the group hug the Ponds give them. "Well, hello, everyone," the Doctor says once he stabilizes himself and all the amazed hellos are exchanged, "we're Amy's imaginary friends."

 

 

The letters find them in 1893 Chicago at the World Fair through the grubby hands of a boy missing his two front teeth. The envelopes are TARDIS blue and the make of them doesn't look so present tense either. 

"What's so important about April Twenty Eleven?" Rose asks later when they step back into the ship, stripping off her dress in the console room because as much as she loves the clothes, the corsets are incredibly restricting and the fabrics heavy. "Do you have any idea who could've sent it?"

But the Doctor just shakes his head, looking as mystified as she feels for once, as he comes over to help her with the back lacing. "Might be River," he answers. "Seems like River's style, but there's no 'hello, sweetie,' so I'm doubtful."

Her envelope is labeled one with the Doctor's labeled two, which she finds strange because most times he comes first in conversation -  _hello, I'm the Doctor and this is Rose._ "Might be someone from our future calling in a favor too early," she says, thinking about his story of how he met River in the Library. "S'not like this bloody time travel ever actually works on time or anything."

"My driving isn't that terrible!"

"Twelve months, Doctor! One hundred years! I beg to - oi, what do you -"

Anything else she means to say dissolves into laughter as his fingers trail over her bare skin. 

 

 

After catching River from falling off a building and after picking up the others in the weird cell thing made of bricks that remind her a bit too much of the Pandorica, the Doctor refuses to let her out of his sight, something he'd been doing since they found out about the Silence but renewed in strength. And naturally that means that when they stop paying attention for just a second the Silence get her because what else did she expect? That everything was to go about  _smoothly?_

The creatures insist she's been here for days, but she knows that can't be true because no one would leave her here for that long. Not Rory, not Amy, not River, and most certainly not her Doctor. "My memory's not weak!" she says, offended at the accusation. "I'm not just human; I'm human plus."

Then it hits her hard and fast like a freight train on a cold winter day - he's rubbed off on her, he has, because here she is, scared and irritated and her reaction is to point out she's something other than  _human._ Not like it was bad necessarily, but still an insult to a species. Even if it is the one she belongs to. You even look like him, Mum said all those years ago in a life long past and faded and forgotten, tucked away in the mess of Bad Wolf Bay. 

 _Bad Wolf._ A warning wrapped in two words scattered across time and space like she owned the right to do it. 

By the time the Doctor has them tangled up soundly with each other under the coziness of her sheets hours later, she's a shivering mess and he's murmuring in his native language against her hair. She doesn't understand now that the heart of the TARDIS is long since faded from her head, but she doesn't need to for her to know how much that scared him.

 

 

Someone tries to absorb the TARDIS, but all she does is rip herself away and tuck herself right back into Rose. She's glowing, tendrils of gold flowing gently from her body as her Doctor tries to talk her into letting go of all the energy once more. 

The smile that twists itself across her face is far from sweet and her eyes brighten. 

"Rose Tyler, they call me," she answers slowly before the song in her mind pauses long enough to tell her how terrible wrong she is. "No, yes, no, sorry," she corrects as her Doctor comes up from behind her. "No, no, in this form I'm called...Bad Wolf."

And her eyes shine so, so bright. 

 _This isn't possible_ , the intelligence says.  _Stop that. Stop that right now. You should be burning alive!_

When her smile fades, she knows what she must do. "Are you afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

The Doctor gently takes her hand. "I know you said you wouldn't harm her," he says quietly, desperately, voice raw with love he's only said once, poor girl, "but please. Let her go."

"But these people - there's so much pain," she says, time and space showing her what she must do and she raises her hand. "This is not death, but liberation, my Doctor."

Then the "intelligence" is destroyed and after a pause, the others cheer softly in glorious thank you, minds touching hers as they call out in gratitude. Her Doctor pulls her in now by the waist and whispers "Please, not to her. Not again" into her ear.

Bad Wolf is released in flashes of bright, gossamer gold, and Rose is awake for about half a second before she slumps backwards against the Doctor's chest. 

The remnants of Bad Wolf cry softly in the back of her mind. 

 

 

Stumbling across a ganger version of the Doctor is something Rose expected and definitely hadn't wanted. She can tell the different even with the shoes switched because she always knows who he is and who he isn't, but the same can't be said for Amy. It's a little tragic, but Rory is god knows where, so Rose cuts her some slack. 

This should be a paradox, though, him existing, and she knows an awful lot about paradoxes by this point. The Doctor acts like everything with this is all fine and dandy but this isn't like a duplicated human; if they bring him on the TARDIS, she won't know how to adjust. Rose doesn't know how many more accidents with the ship her body can take after the last one, whether it draws Bad Wolf out or not. That's the problem with possession, really - it's unpredictable. No matter how often they tell themselves it's safe, that it'll be all right, they both know that's not necessarily the truth. If that ganger comes on, there's no saying what will happen. 

No one brings this up. 

Maybe that's the problem. 

 

 

Half a day later Amy melts into a pile of Flesh-goo that the TARDIS cleans up immediately so it won't cause problems. Rory's on his knees in front of the spot, face slack with shock, and his fingertips skim the floor.

"We'll get her back," Rose tells him, sitting down across from him. "The Doctor's locking onto her location right now. We'll get her back."

Suddenly his eyes snapped away from the floor and up to her before travelling past her shoulder to some point beyond as he says, "Amy told me you two were separated by some parallel dimension. Who came back first? Which one of you got the other one back?"

From behind her, the Doctor answers, "Rose did. As the stars went out she found me in the street."

Rory's eyes drift back to her. "Find her, yeah?" he says, voice cracking. "Just say you promise."

Even though Rose can't do much, she reaches over and gathers her friend into a hug, feeling his shoulders shake. "I promise, Rory," she says. "I promise we'll get Amy back."

 

 

So River is Amy and Rory's daughter, which isn't something Rose expected, but she stopped applying logic to time travel a long while ago. Weird, though, that she hadn't already figured it out from her most recent trip with Bad Wolf taking over her brain. Maybe she just forgot again, but that she hopes not. It's bad enough her mind gets messed around with as much as it does already. 

They leave River - or Melody Pond, apparently - to take her parents home, the Doctor taking Rose's hand and pulling her onto the ship so the door slams shut behind them. This isn't like him to just leave people stranded somewhere other than Earth (because he's notorious for leaving others behind), but he must see this as some ridiculous chance for the happy family to get to know each other or something along those lines. The whole situation is making her head hurt too much to try and figure anything out. And it certainly doesn't help when the Doctor says, "Well, River was right about one thing. I'm certainly better known than I used to be, but I'm not the only one. You've kicked up quite the reputation, it seems."

Yes, she'd noticed that too, or maybe had been noticing it for quite some time now. Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf, destroyer of the Daleks, had two words splashed across time and space. Somewhere along the way those words became tangled with his name and maybe she's like a shadow, then, built of faded gold. "We'll be fine, you and me," she tells him, grabbing on to his hand. "Doesn't matter what other people think about us. And this is a terrible mistake, but we know what to look for in the future now."

When he says, "Yes, I suppose," he doesn't look at her and Rose realizes that this time there's nothing she can do to help.

 

 

Outside the Doctor's dying and she's stuck inside the head of a fake Amy Pond. Her friends don't seem particularly surprised when she turns around, grabs the man working as the main control by his collar, and yanks him up so he's standing. She doesn't care that this might get her killed. 

"Let us go," she says, having to rein in her anger because she worked  _so hard_ to stay with him and one of her greatest friends will  _not_ be his downfall. "I  _demand_ you let us help him  _right now._ "

Somewhere behind her, a woman says, "We cannot interfere with locked events. River Song must kill -"

"Do you have any idea who I am?" Rose asks. "Because you're now responsible if he dies, too, and that makes things  _very_ simple."

"R-Rose Tyler," the man answers. "Parents Jackie and Pete Tyler. The Doctor's only companion in his ninth regeneration and first in his -"

"I'm the embodiment of the TARDIS and the Time Vortex," she tells him. "I'm Bad Wolf. I erased the Daleks twice now from existence by thinking about it -"

Amy moves closer, tries to say "Rose, you need calm down" but she overlaps her friend with, "If you don't release us right this instant - if you let the Doctor die - then I swear on the Face of Boe that  _I will spread all of your atoms across time and space_ until there's  _nothing_ left. Do you understand me?"

Before she can even register what's happening, she and the Ponds are outside the robot body, tumbling to the ground. 

Then the Doctor wakes with a gasp and gathers himself up, hair even more wild than usual, because River sacrifices her regenerations. Rose moves past her fainting friend, throws herself at the daft alien she loves enough to tear apart the universe for, and pulls him down for a kiss before he can even get in a word. No matter how many times they die or almost die, she'll never give up on their forever. 

She wonders if this is what the sun felt like when he destroyed it all to say goodbye. 

 

 

It's a dollhouse. 

They're inside a dollhouse and panphobia has nothing to do with pants.

After all is said and done and they're back in the TARDIS getting in some alone time, she asks the Doctor, "Do you ever think about it? What it would be like to have a kid, I mean."

He freezes, hand poised over one of the controls. "No," he answers a moment later, resuming. "Why? Do you?"

"No," she says quickly, unsure whether or not she's lying. "It's just - you seem so good with children, is all. Jamie during the blitz, Amy when she was young, the little boy just now."

As he looks anywhere but her, he says, "Well, just because it's been a while doesn't mean I've forgotten how care for them." Then, after another pause, he adds, "For a second, on Bay Wolf Bay the first time 'round, I thought you meant you were pregnant. And that the baby might be mine."

She nods and now averts her eyes, too. "I know. The way you looked at me wasn't particularly subtle."

"Rose, I don't know what would happen if we ever wanted to try," he tells her, parking the TARDIS in the middle of space, which means he takes this seriously. "I'm a Time Lord and you're an immortal human frozen in time - a living, healthy paradox."

Pressing her lips together, she says, "You have given it a thought, then."

"So have you."

She taps her fingers against the console, uncomfortable now and wishing she hadn't brought it up. "Mum knew we had something more without me even telling her," she says. "She was trying to get me to stay once 'cause we came back hurt for my birthday and she asked what would happen if I ever wanted a kid. So yeah, I guess I have."

Again, there's a pause in conversation, and the Doctor says, "How about we take a trip to Earth? Choose a time period, any time period."

The words  _I want to see her_ get lodged somewhere in her throat because she knows that just isn't possible. She's created enough paradoxes already and never wants to see one of those Reapers again if something goes wrong. "I want to see Jack," she answers finally. "Can we do that, Doctor?"

Without answering, he sets course for 2011 Cardiff so he already knows that Rose is back. He gives both of them kisses on sight and flirts mercilessly with Amy and Rory. It's the closest to her old life as she's going to get and she savors every moment of it.

 

 

Now that she's "human plus," they don't know if the virus will affect her, so she stays behind with the Doctor while Rory goes searching for his wife. "Stuck in two different time streams," she says, watching her friend on the monitor. "Amy must be scared."

"An accelerated time stream, too," the Doctor says, pushing his fingers through his gravity-defying hair. "She'll age as normal in that stream. If I got the time even a bit wrong, she won't be the Amy we know."

"We'll fix it," she tells him. "We always do, Doctor. We were stuck in two different universes and made it back to each other, yeah?"

He adjusts the screen, turns it down so she can see it too. The place might've been beautiful if there were people milling around like the Doctor promised there would be. He says, "Well, Rose, that only worked because the multi-universe started to collapse and you decided to risk a dimension canon."

Rory walks alone through a planet frozen in time, and through his eyes the three of them search for any flash of ginger hair. It looks like such a lonely, sterile world out there and she's almost glad she's "human plus" for the first time. She loves her friends, but she promised the Doctor that they would never risk reliving Bad Wolf Bay and the similarities here are too many for comfort.

 

 

As awful as it is, Rose Tyler's complete faith in the Doctor faded the day after he disappeared before he could say he loved her because she realized the only way they'd ever see each other again was if she found a way to him. He never would've risked coming to see her even though, according to Jack and Donna, he always seemed so lost without her. It's just that she finally understood that forever would have to be a two man effort.

In this false hotel - this terrible, terrible place - it turns out her wavering faith is what saves her. There are no doors she's drawn too, no Minotaur in the maze of '80s hallways to consume her, and she wonders what the Doctor's faith is because there’s a door for him, as they eventually discover. She doesn't ask what he saw. 

Somehow, she knows she doesn't want to hear the answer.

 

 

They spend some time alone. It wasn't meant to be long, but all of the sudden it hops from one year to nearly one hundred fifty and yet it feels close to no time at all. He brings her dancing on the moon, off for hypervodka cocktails in the year 2610, to planets on the farthest reaches of the universe. They see Jack, she meets Martha Jones in person, they spend a whole orbit cycle on Woman Wept. He brings her out so far into the ocean they can't see the shoreline, waves curling high above them and frozen solid, snow drifting down from a heavy grey sky with the clouds hiding the cold blue sun that exists a billion kilometers away at the center of the Andromeda galaxy. Years and years ago, in a different lifetime, she told Mickey about this place before running off to help the Doctor and left him alone in the street again. 

Rose has made a lot of mistakes, but how she and her ex-boyfriend treated each other after the Doctor came falling out of the sky into her life is possibly her biggest. 

She doesn't forget what he looks like - or her mom, her parallel world dad, the Ponds, the members of Torchwood, etc. - even with all this time passing.  But with everything else, with all this time, with all this  _history_ , she and the Doctor know each other better than any two people in the world, she imagines. So she, of course, realizes quickly that something is terribly, terribly wrong.

"My death's a fixed point in time and drawing close soon enough," he tells her when she asks. "That's what's so important about April Twenty Eleven. It'll be River who kills me, I suppose, since she didn't last time and that's all the miniature people inside the robot were talking about."

The thought of it twists painfully inside her. "Well, then we just have to be the first people to break a fixed point, then," she says because she refuses to let him die. "That way River won't have to deal with the guilt of killing you and you'll get to stay right here. You, and the TARDIS, and me, like it should be."

But he's already shaking his head when he answers, "You know what happens when you interfere with fixed points, Rose."

"I don't care about that, Doctor," she says firmly. "You promised me forever and I'm not letting you leave me so soon. Now help me think of something because I'm doing this with or without you."

He doesn't answer, just twists a dial to fly away to some far off planet eighty-six years in the future, and she knows she won. It's forever for the two of them and she's not allowing something as silly as a fixed point ruin that. She's already lost enough people as it is. He won't be added to that list.

 

 

Along with River's help, Rose breaks time until she can think of something.

Getting married wasn't the solution she expected.

 

 

They're on holiday in 1920s America, using the time as something of a honeymoon even though Time Lords don't traditionally take honeymoons after marriage, when the message comes to the psychic paper and they're off again. And everything is fine until they land and he stops her from leaving. "This is the Dalek home planet, Rose," he says. "You're not leaving the TARDIS and putting yourself at risk like that."

Crossing her arms, she answers, "You can't keep me away from the Daleks forever, Doctor. And what about you, then? You're in more danger out there than I am."

 "We don't often see Daleks, but twice now they've drawn out Bad Wolf," he says, placing his hands on her shoulders and staring down at her evenly. "I know she said you aren't at risk, but every time your body gets taken over, you're tempting fate. You've got all this alien energy stuffed inside your little human body, keeping you alive, which is  _brilliant_ , but it allows more energy to pour through you even when you don't want it and eventually that excess energy might burn you up like it should be doing already. You wouldn't let me die, so I'm not letting you die either."

She's upset, she wants to argue, she wants to fight until she  _makes_ him take her along. But it's useless and Bad Wolf scares her as much she scares him, so she says, "I'll go...clean, I suppose. We haven't in - blimey, a year, I think. If you're not back by the time I'm done, I'm coming after you."

He leans down and gives her a short kiss.

"Oh, Rose Tyler," he says, moving her hair out of her face, "I didn't imagine anything less."

 

 

Sometimes there are Daleks throwing the Doctor and temporarily separated Ponds into an asylum planet to break a force field. Other days they come across dinosaurs on a spaceship. 

Crazy discoveries like this remind Rose how much she loves this life. For every bad moment, there's something wonderful, and fighting off T-Rexes with Amy and a poacher while Rory and his father pilot a spaceship and she and her  _husband_ plot how save an Egyptian Queen who fancies the aforementioned poacher is the perfect example of "something wonderful."

They're going to save the day and all the good guys are going to live. 

Happy endings have always been her favorite kind.

 

 

There were cubes. Many, many black cubes scattered across the world, causing heart attacks and stopping one of her Doctor's hearts, but the problem is fixed now. For the first time ever, they stay with the Ponds in their wonderful blue house that doesn't fly. Amy, she discovers, is an absolutely  _brilliant_ cook. 

"I got this recipe in our trip to Twenty-One Fifty," she tells them when she brings over a peach cobbler. "'Course, I had to use real peaches instead of artificial peaches, but it works. It's Rory's favorite."

The Ponds are so beautifully domestic that her mother would have just  _loved_ them - and would've insisted on calling them the Williams, of course, because that's what they supposedly are even though the four of them all know they're actually Ponds. Honestly, she bets Rory was writing  _Rory Pond_ on his primary school notebooks instead of  _Amy Williams_ because they've always been a little different. Rose thinks sometimes about how lucky she and the Doctor were, stumbling across Amy the day they fell into the pool in the library and accidently left a young Scottish girl waiting for them for fourteen years. 

Since then, she and Rory have learned that the Doctor has a terrible sense of direction when it comes to time streams. Amy wasn't particularly surprised when Rose explained how twelve months are not, in fact, twelve hours, and he should know how to fly his own bloody ship. 

Rory's the one who cuts them the pieces, shooing Amy away from the knives. "I like peaches," the Doctor says, already stabbing at his slice with his fork because Brian is here too, so Rose is making him eat like a person for once. "Good things you've made this with peaches and not with pares. I hate pares. Have I ever told you how much I hate pares, Ponds?"

"We're not Ponds," Brian says. 

"Yes, you are," Rose tells him, and the Doctor licks his fork.

"We know," Rory says, ignoring both of them. 

With a smile and a sip of her tea, Amy adds, "It's not as if you haven't mentioned it a thousand times. Bit rich, coming from someone who likes fish fingers and custard."

The Doctor runs his fingers through his hair and makes it messy and perfect. "I frankly find that delicious, Amelia Pond," he answers. "And Rose likes peanut butter and cream cheese sandwiches, which is certainly stranger."

Rose's "Hey, they're not that bad!" is overlapped when Brian says, "You should try to make this with blackberries, Amy. Blackberries are better than peaches this time of year."

"Brilliant!" the Doctor says in that overly enthusiastic way of his. "Blackberries are great. Pares are just reprehensible."

"Don't worry, Doctor, we're aware you dislike - no, sorry,  _hate_ \- pares."

"Am I sensing a hint of judgment in your voice, Rory?"

"Nope, no judgment here, Doctor."

They're like children, Rose thinks idly as she sips her Earl Grey. And yes, she includes herself in this too, and two of the Ponds because Brian is certainly more adult-like. While Amy and Rory seem to have embraced the normal life, there's something still there, resilient. She appreciates it because she doesn't want to think about losing them for any reason. Over the past two hundred years or so, she's lost enough people. The Doctor's had companions come and go, but these two are also hers now, and she doesn't know if she can cope with the heartbreak. Not when she already knows that one day she'll inevitably lose River, too. 

Letting go has never been easy for her. She thinks that's something of humanity left inside her old, tired mind that still has so much to see, and continues to eat her peach cobbler.

 

 

"They weren't killed," Rose says once the numbness wears off and denial sets in, taking a seat next to the Doctor, feet dangling over Jupiter. "Not really."

For what feels like a long while, the Doctor is silent so she's silent too, staring down at the planet's swirling landscape. There's no life on Jupiter and never has been, same as all other planets made of gas and dust. Unlike those, though, even Jupiter's moons are empty. The thought of this has always made her safe, for some reason. Eventually her husband answers, "I know. They had the chance to grow old together. I suppose they might not have had that if they stayed with us. Everyone leaves or dies in the end, Rose."

It's not really the two getting zapped back in time by a Weeping Angel that causes the pain; instead it's how they lost them. Rose supposes that might be selfish, but not quite as selfish as her saying, "Not me, Doctor. I came back and I'm here to stay. You know that."

"Forever," he says, more to himself than to her, and gently takes her small hand in his. "Lifetime after lifetime, and we'll be together."

Amy certainly said something right back in Manhattan:  _together or not at all._ Everything dies or fades in the end, and that's what Rose wants. She doesn't care if others might call that unhealthy. 

She tells him she loves him. 

He kisses the side of her head and says he loves her, too.

 

 

Somewhere along the way, they end up in 2008 Oxford and run into Shareen, who Rose doesn't recognize at first. Not only has it been a long time, but her old friend's hair is shorter than it was when they last met and she's dressed in nicer clothing. She'd been smart, Shareen had. Smart enough to get into university, even, though she'd taken a year off to work before applying anywhere. 

She smiles brightly when she gets Rose's attention. 

As she pulls out of their hug, Shareen says, "Oh, Rosie, you look so different! Where have you been? Your mum said you were missing last I heard. Does she know you're alive? Or did you really run away with a mysterious man like Mickey Smith was going on about?"

For Rose, this is a whole lifetime away and somewhere in London, she's laughing along with Mum and Mickey and the Doctor as it snows outside - real snow, not ash, even though it was only a week since the Christmas Invasion. Somewhere out there, Harriet Jones is being forced to resign from health issues she’ll never have the chance to die from. 

"Mum knows," she assures the girl (because that's what this old friend of hers is now, just a girl). "It was just a minor misunderstanding."

Shareen is still smiling as her eyes scan Rose's figure up and down, taking in to clothes that must seem strange because she's upgraded her wardrobe since they last saw each other. In Pete's world, she no long wore brightly colored clothing because she never got out of her head that the Doctor called her his pink and yellow human. This old friend of hers says, with a slight ooo to her tone, "So was there a mysterious man?"

With a nod, Rose answers, "There is. And he's absolutely fantastic, he is. What about you, Shareen? Have you met someone?"

Like this, she moves the conversation away from her, and Shareen launches into a story about her attractive male flatmate, who she's not dating but fancies more than she ought to. Rose says the right things in the right places, laughs and nods, and excuses herself a half hour later with a heavy heart. It's easy to forget how truly old she is at times, and this was an unwanted reminder. She's not a Time Lord and without the Doctor, she would go mad. People like her aren't meant to live forever and she'll never stop being thankful that she has someone wonderful at her side every step of the way.

 

 

Not long after Shareen, they lose another friend, but Rose doesn't know this until the night is over. 

It's River's birthday (she doesn't disclose her age) and they take her back in the past to go ice skating on the Thames and listen to a modern singer's concert because sometimes when people get zapped to the past they just run with it, which is something Rose thinks is admirable. They even get to hunt through the wardrobe room and pick up pretty, frilly dresses and take forever to get ready just to annoy the Doctor. For River, losing her parents is relatively recent when for Rose and the Doctor's it been six years, and no one mentions anything. 

"How do I look, sweetie?" her friend asks with that unique smile of hers that always screams trouble. "Dashing enough for a night in Victorian London?"

"You always look dashing enough for a night in Victorian London, no matter what you're in," Rose answers, fluffy her hair because she's leaving it down today, contemporary fashion statements be damned. "What about me? Is the red a little much?"

Outside in the console room, the Doctor yells that it won't be winter forever but the two women ignore him because clothing is the third best part of time travel, really. "You look like royalty as usual, Rose, dear," River says and puts on her small hat that will do absolutely nothing against the chill. At least they're dressed warmer than that time the Doctor supposedly took Rose to Naples for Christmas and instead landed them in Cardiff to fight off alien ghosts with Charles Dickens. Fourth best part of time travel is meeting famous people because nothing is more satisfactory than watching people's faces when she says she knew so-and-so at one point. 

"Royalty my arse.  _You're_  the one who accidently married Napoleon."

River just laughs and takes her by the hand, leading her out the door. Rose isn't expecting it when the Doctor breaks down crying after they drop their friend off at Stormcage hours later. 

 

 

They park the TARDIS in the clouds and create a spiral staircase just to see if they can do it. It's Victorian London again, blanketed in a thin layer of snow and Rose would love it if it weren't for the snowman trying to kill them. 

After River's death, he promised her a holiday, danger and sadness free, and she's mostly close to positive that saving the world from living snow does not, in fact, count as  _danger free_. "You're taking me somewhere warm after this," she tells him, lifting her skirts as she runs in horribly impractical boots to save two children from their deceased nanny. "Somewhere very, very warm with a lot of colorful drinks."

The Doctor skids to a stop in front of the old house and she almost knocks into him. Inside a child is crying and Jenny is yelling at a man to let them through. It's not common that someone beats Rose and the Doctor to where they want to go. "I'll take you to Disney World," he answers, pulling open the door. "We've never been to Disney World before, Rose."

There's a man there, indignant in the face of a lizard from the dawn of time, her wife, and an alien that looks astoundingly like a sentient potato, but they ignore the scene, racing up the stairs and to the children who face down the dead nanny made of ice. "Sounds brilliant, Doctor," she says, and she remembers that she'd take saving children over a holiday any day.

 

 

On her wrist, Rose wears a bracelet Mum gave her back in Pete's World and she offers it now to the "god" disguised as a sun. 

"I could have stayed there!" she shouts, nudging her stupid Doctor out of the way. "I could have stayed there with my family but I left and this is the only reminder I have. Take this and think of all the days I could've lived!"

The sun absorbs it greedily and in the wake of all the infinite possibilities that could have been, it's satiated for eternity. The Doctor kisses the side of her head, takes her hand, and tells her to run.

And they'll keep on running on and on until there's nowhere else to go.

 

 

Meeting an empathic psychic isn't something that happens every day and Rose thinks it's quite exciting. It's been  _years_ since she thought of Gwenth back in the funeral home during their time with Charles Dickens and her first Doctor. All in all, it's a pleasant experience until the woman says, "You were a ghost once, too, Miss Tyler."

Her smile comes out awkward instead of genuine and she takes a sip of tea to delay. Eventually: "I was never ghost, sorry." Then, as an afterthought, "And no 'Miss Tyler.' I sound like my mum."

Emma takes a sip of her tea, too, and this has gotten very uncomfortable very quickly. "Yes, you were, or something like it," she says, and goes for brandy, the nearest beverage with alcohol. This has been a very stressful day all around and Rose wishes they'd never come here. "I see your past clear in my mind. You were a ghost, as the one here is. And somehow, you came back because you love the man you're with."

_A ghost, as this one here is._

It takes a moment for this to sink in. She turns around, searches out for her husband as he speaks with the other human, and calls, "We've got it all wrong, Doctor!"

He drops whatever conversation he's having mid-sentence. "You need to be more specific, Rose," he says. "But yes, I'm starting to think that as well."

"It's a parallel world," she tells him, calm as she can manage even after all these years because every time she thinks of Bad Wolf Bay, it hurts terribly. "This is a woman stuck in a parallel world."

This is called a coincidence, she reminds herself. Sometimes, they happen.

 

 

Then the living snow is back and they're in this place called Trenzalore where the Doctor's buried and River Song's grave is a secret passageway. The Doctor's dying, the snow tearing him apart through time and space and he's on the ground with nothing to help him but her, saying, "Don't you dare, Rose Tyler."

But she just holds his hand - the hand that saved him once, twice, kept him like this because he didn't want to give her up - and presses out a watery smile. Because here he is, really dying, but not regenerating, and for all his genius he must really be an idiot if he doesn't think she'll save him. 

"I want you safe, my Doctor," she says, and relinquishes control to the song in the back of her mind.

 

 

She does save him, in the end, but only enough to regenerate instead of stay who he is. The others have gone off somewhere, stuck in Victorian London saving the world together, and she sits by their bedside in TARDIS, still holding his hand. It's always about hands with them, always has been, and he's younger now than he was in the past two bodies she's known with hair crazy in a different way than before and grey green eyes. He looks closer to her physical age, too, and even though he has no control over what form he takes, she wonders if that was somehow on purpose. 

When he wakes up, eyes blinking to awareness before settling on her face, he stares at her blankly for a moment before saying, "You're still here." His voice is higher than it used to be, but he still sounds like he's from Britain. 

She smiles softly and reaches over to brush his hair from his forehead. "And you're still you," she answers, and leans over to give him a kiss. 

He's different, but she's different too, and together they'll make it work. Maybe this time they won't need to burn up a sun to do, too.


End file.
